To the Editor:
To all my neighbors who painstakingly cleared the sidewalk in front of their homes of snow: Thank you so much for making sure we can use the sidewalk after the recent large snowfall. It is a huge amount of work! I see you did your best, and yet the sidewalks are a patchwork of perfectly cleared, cleared over the width of one snow shovel, or treacherous packed ice where perhaps someone has been out of town. Not to mention the snow/ice bank, where the municipal ploughs have deposited snow from the car lanes *after* the homeowner has cleared the sidewalk.
Frigid weather or not, Princeton residents love to walk in our beautiful town. All of us, of all ages and abilities, should be able to do so safely, and not have to resort to walking on the car lanes. So I would like to ask: Why are individual homeowners responsible for clearing the snow? After all, the sidewalk is for public use.
Indeed the sidewalks are part of a Complete Street, and since Princeton has declared itself a Complete Streets town, it makes sense for the town to take the responsibility for snow removal on the complete street. And who will pay for it? Well, who pays for the snow removal on the car lanes? Spoiler: All of us. So to those of my neighbors who live in a car-free household (one in eight in Princeton) and who nevertheless contribute, through their local taxes, to the snow removal from the lanes where I drive my car: I see you, and I thank you.